Category Archives: Women’s Issues

Apr10

The Upcoming Global Newborn Health Conference #Newborn2013

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The Upcoming Global Newborn Health Conference #Newborn2013

It had been a while since I had cradled a newborn in my arms, and as I held a friend’s new baby the other day I felt the world fall away. I just sat in awe staring at his sweet face and marveling at the tiny hand wrapped around my finger. I remembered holding each of my newborn babies and getting lost in their innocence. There is nothing so precious or miraculous in my mind than a new baby. It reminded me of how different life is in those early days, as a mother, your focus is just so intent on sustaining the new life that you somehow wondrously brought into this world. I was able to be so child-centric at that time in our lives, virtually unaware of the outside universe.  Now with older children venturing out each day, it is impossible not to look outward from our home, at the world my kids are growing up in.

It is a world where not all mothers get to see their newborn thrive and grow. There is another moment I clearly remember from each of my birthing experiences, and that is the moment right before the baby came, an acute clear panic that something might go wrong, an awareness that one, or two of our lives were at stake. Then, luckily, thankfully, the relief when we both made it through, our baby took its first breath, and was placed in my arms.  It is that neonatal period of the first 28 days of life when a baby is most vulnerable.   Because of this fact there are many cultures in the world where  babies are not even given a name  , in some cases they can remain nameless for up to two months after they are born.  It does not need to be that way, and in this day and age should not be.  Many mothers could be spared the loss of their newborn with simple precautions and shared knowledge that should be commonly available.  We have the resources to ensure that newborn babies do not die unnecessarily, and we need to strive to get awareness and access to all women giving birth.

My Newborns, Four Of The Important Reasons Why I Care About Newborn Health

Saving Newborn Lives is the goal of The Gates Foundation’s Director of Family Health, Dr. Gary Darmstadt, and for 28 days until April 15th, a period that represents the critical neonatal period in a newborn life, he is inspiring an ongoing conversation regarding newborn health to help generate action to prevent the unnecessary loss of newborn lives. The Global Team of 200 has joined up with him for the 28 days leading up to the Global Newborn Health Conference that will be held between April 15 – 18 in South Africa, to engage in conversations and spread the word about global newborn health through social media.

As countries make their final push toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals and beyond, progress in reducing neonatal mortality is essential to meeting the child survival MDG. While progress has been made in addressing childhood illnesses, newborn deaths now account for 43 percent of deaths of children under age 5. Globally, nearly 3 million newborns die each year and 2.6 million babies are stillborn. Four out of five newborn deaths result from three preventable and treatable conditions: prematurity, intrapartum-related complications (“birth asphyxia”) and infections. USAID’s flagship Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP), Save the Children’s Saving Newborn Lives (SNL) program, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), with additional support from John Snow, Inc., the Laerdal Foundation, and Jhpiego, will host a four-day conference focused on accelerating the scale-up of high-impact interventions that address these three major causes of newborn mortality. – Global Newborn Health Conference

Dr. Gary Darmstadt is tweeting “Did You Know” facts about newborn health leading up to the conference, and you can join us in the conversation too at #newborn2013.

 

 

 

 

I wrote this post as part of The Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good that concentrates on issues involving women and girls, children, world hunger and maternal health.

Our Motto: Individually we are all powerful. Together we can change the world. We believe in the power of collective action to help others and believe in ourselves to make this world a better place for our children and the world’s children.

Want to share the #Newborn2013 conversation on Facebook? It’s easy. Click the link below to easily share.

Join the Conversation About Newborn Health

Apr5

What Are The Millennium Development Goals?

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What Are The Millennium Development Goals?

The Millennium Development Goals are 8 international development goals set after the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000. These goals were agreed upon by all 193 United Nations members to be achieved by 2015. At the time it must have seemed very far off in the future, but today marks 1,000 days until the goals are to be met. Millennium 1,000 has filled a schedule of 1,000 minutes of digital programing today to mark the goal and inspire momentum in achieving the 8 Millennium Development goals globally. You can join the conversation, or learn more by following the hashtag #MDGMomentum. I will be taking part in 1/2 hour Twitter chats with World Moms Blog at 6pm on the topic of #MDG2 Education using @worldmomsblog and #MDGMomentum, again at 9:30pm with Social Good Moms (where I am a member of Global team of  200) on #MDG5 “Picturing Maternal Health: A Look at Maternal Health Through Facts and Photos.” using #SocialGoodMoms & #MDDGMomentum hashtags, and then again at Midnight with World Moms Blog on #MDG4 Child Survival  using @worldmomsblog & the #MDGMomentum hashtag. I hope to see you at one or more! Below are fantastic infographics on each of the Millennium Development Goals from the United Nations. Much progress has been made, already extreme poverty has been halved since 1990, but we have so much farther to go by 2015, we need to work together to achieve these goals.

Apr4

ONEMoms and FashionABLE Mother’s Day Scarf

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ONEMoms and FashionABLE Mother’s Day Scarf

I’m sure that you remember the gorgeous fashionABLE scarves in the Documama holiday gifts that give back guide.  Each style is more beautiful than the next, but the best part is that each scarf also helps to employ a woman working towards a better life for herself and her family in Ethiopia.  A few months ago in December and January there was a ONE | fashionABLE | ALT challenge / contest held where the Alt community was challenged to design a scarf to be voted on by conference attendees.  The scarf was then handmade in Ethiopia for an exclusive ONE | fashionABLE Mother’s Day Scarf.  The Altitude Summit Community meets up for an annual conference in Utah geared towards design-oriented bloggers, lifestyle brands and companies that want to connect with them to discuss theory, and the love of all things design.  More than 60 designs were submitted to the contest, 12 of which were produced by FashionABLE in Ethiopia.  Four of the twelve were voted on by the ALT community, and the winning scarf is being produced now and will be available on April 15.

As a ONEMoms community partner, today, Thursday, April 4 we are able to offer our documama readers a pre-sale of the chosen design and both ONE.org and FashionABLE are offering two full days of free shipping.  After April 5th the pre-sale will continue with regular shipping. All scarves ordered will be shipped on April 17 in time for Mother’s Day. The scarf is gorgeous, and each handmade scarf takes three days to make.  The chosen scarf is named The Genet,  after one of the amazing women who helped produce it, and is available for purchase through the ONE Store  and fashionABLE websites.

Read Genet’s story to get an idea for the opportunities you are supporting by purchasing a FashionABLE scarf:

Photo of Genet and her daughter provided by ONE.org

“I don’t remember my birth mother, and I don’t know my birthday or actual age, so the timeline of my story is based on my best guess . I was brought from the countryside into the city of Addis at age 3 by an aunt who promised my family I would be sent to school and have a “better life .” Instead, I was groomed to be a housemaid and given so many responsibilities that the load of work become impossible and overwhelming . By age 12, I ran away and began living on  the street . I felt lost and I was continually raped . Eventually, I became pregnant . With a baby at 15, I learned to have sex for money so I could support her. I coped with life through drinking, drugs and smoking . I recently learned about this program and am enrolled in counseling to work through my addictions, my childhood trauma, and learn ways to reconnect with my now 6-year-old daughter.  I am also working at fashionABLE and grateful  to have a job that provides dignity. “

 

This scarf  is definitely on my Mother’s Day wish list!

 

Mar27

Screening of Girl Rising With Maternova

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Screening of Girl Rising With Maternova

As I watched my 10-year-old daughter practice cartwheels with her friends, I could not help but reflect on a girl the same age whose story I viewed in a film a couple of weeks ago. These carefree girls who whirl in front of me today are pure joy in motion.  They are all giggles and silliness, while arms and legs whip past.  The girl I reflect on was an 11-year-old pregnant child bride, and  pretty much the antithesis of the scene before me now.

Meg Wirth Founder of Maternova with Cable Car Cinema Owner Daniel Kamil.

Her stolen childhood was depicted to me in the Rhode Island premier of the groundbreaking documentary film Girl Rising.  Hosted at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence by Maternova. Girl Rising, was directed by Academy Award nominee Richard Robbins, and tells the story of 9 girls from around the world, girls living a very different reality than the one that I faced growing up, or that my daughters live today.  The girls in the film each take on the unique challenges of their lives, and are rising up despite those challenges, through determination and education.  It is the strength of their human spirit and will to move forward that gives the viewer hope for the girls of the world as well, and lets us envision better childhoods leading to successful lives for all girls worldwide in the future.   Each girl’s story was written by a known writer from her country and narrated by a well-known actress.  The stories were then woven in an innovative format that combines animation with documentary footage.  Statistics are threaded into each poignant narrative to help the viewer grasp where the girl child stands today, and what the possibilities are if we support her.

Girl Rising spotlights the stories of nine unforgettable girls born into unforgiving circumstances. Girls like Sokha, an orphan who rises from a life in the garbage dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to become a star student and an accomplished dancer; Suma, who writes songs that help her endure forced servitude in Nepal and today crusades to free others; and Ruksana, an Indian “pavement-dweller” whose father sacrifices his own basic needs for his daughter’s dreams. -10×10.org on Girl Rising

One of the exciting aspects for me of being part of the Shot@Life campaign with the  United Nations Foundation, is learning about all of the other amazing United Nations Foundation initiatives taking place as well.   I head heard about the film Girl Rising as a centerpiece of the UN Foundation Girl Up campaign in partnership with the film’s creators at 10×10, a global movement promoting the education of girls in the developing world.   When I looked into a local screening I was thrilled to learn not only that Maternova was located right here in Rhode Island, but that they were hosting the Rhode Island premiere of Girl Rising at the Cable Car Cinema. Maternova is an amazing  mission-driven company committed to saving the lives of mothers and infants by providing healthcare innovations directly to frontline workers where they are most needed.  Maternova concurrently incubates new products in their field, and has established a non-profit to assist in their mission of promoting maternal and infant health in developing nations. The attendance roster in the theatre that night really highlights the innovative global humanitarian hub that Rhode Island is becoming.   With leaders in solutions to poverty, maternal health, and hunger  from Edesia Global Nutrition Solutions, Solar Sister, and our hosts from Maternova, these women are change agents who are coming up with solutions to some of the worlds most vexing problems, and I was honored to be in their company.  As a woman, as a mother, or as a global citizen with an interest in the future of our world, you will want to see Girl Rising.  The film is sure to deepen understanding of the challenges our girls face, and lead us toward solutions.  The Cable Car Cinema has one more screening of Girl Rising scheduled on the evening of April 1st, and Girl Rising will be broadcast by CNN Films this summer.  View the Film Trailer below and read 13 facts you should know about Girls and Education from 10×10 here.

Mar22

March 22nd Is World Water Day

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March 22nd Is World Water Day

Photo by Elizabeth Atalay

Many years ago traveling in Africa I took this photo of young girls carrying these huge jugs of water through their village to their homes.  This is a snapshot of a scene that I saw played out time and again in my travels through the continent. Lines at village hand pumps, and heavy jerry cans balanced on heads, hours fetching water that could otherwise have been spent by these young girls in school, or by the women earning a living.   By being there, at times the amount of effort put into accessing the most basic of human necessities, and the conservation required once obtained, became my own reality as well.  Having grown up with an abundance of water, this was a sharp learning curve on what a precious commodity water is.  It is easy to take it for granted when you have it, until you don’t.  According to statistics from WaterAid the average North American uses 400 liters of water every day, while the average person in the developing world uses 10 liters of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC)) So, while I returned home to the many taps of flowing water inside my house with a new appreciation for that luxury, 783 million people around the world are without clean water to drink.  Combine that fact with the lack of proper sanitation in many of the same regions and the result is 2,000 children who die each day from water related diseases.

The United Nations has established March 22nd as a day to examine water issues around the world.

WaterAid is an International non-profit organization that helps the world’s poorest people to plan, build and manage their own safe water supplies and to improve their sanitation and hygiene.  These basic services transform lives.

“Water is just the beginning of the road out of poverty.  Hours spent carrying water can instead be spent with family, tending crops, raising livestock or starting a business.  Simple changes to sanitation and hygiene practices save thousands of babies’ lives and keep children in school.”- WaterAid.

How you can help:

  • Watch, and share the below video:

 

 

 

Follow WaterAid America on Twitter and Facebook and share their posts on the #20ways that water is just the beginning of the road out of poverty.

  • Join the World Water Day Google+ Hangout at 1.30pm EST on March 22 where WaterAid and other water organizations will be discussing the world water crisis and solutions in a celebration moderated by YouTube star Justine Ezarik.
  • Make a donation: as experts in practical, hands-on water solutions WaterAid has brought clean water to 17.5 million people. But they need your help to achieve their aim of helping 1.4 million more people this year.

 

Visit www.wateraidamerica.org/worldwaterday for all the latest World Water  Day news.

I wrote this post as part of The Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good that concentrates on issues involving women and girls, children, world hunger and maternal health.

Our Motto: Individually we are all powerful. Together we can change the world. We believe in the power of collective action to help others and believe in ourselves to make this world a better place for our children and the world’s children.